


Voigt-Kampff

by weepingnaiad



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Community: trope_bingo, Gen, Trope Bingo Round 3, spoilers for Episode: s01e11 The Magical Place, spoilers for Episode: s01e15 Yes Men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-03-19
Packaged: 2018-01-16 08:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1339345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad/pseuds/weepingnaiad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil is determined to take his search for answers to Fury himself.  He gets more than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Voigt-Kampff

**Author's Note:**

> **Beta:** The ever amazing abigail89. Thank you, m'dear! As always I fiddle after she's finished and all mistakes are on me.

"AC?" Skye's voice is tentative, scared as she calls him back. He stops and turns. Her flinch tells him more than he wants to know about his own expression.

"We deserve answers, Skye. You say S.H.I.E.L.D. is your family because it'd protected you all those years. Family doesn't do shit like this and I need to know why."

She swallows, eyes wide, but she nods. Her palm settles on his bicep and he huffs out an annoyed breath. As if he's the one that needs comfort.

"Okay. But you have to let me help. You have to trust me."

Her blind faith in him, her confidence that Agent Phil Coulson is a good man nearly drops him. But, really, from the first, he'd cared about Skye, wanted to do right by her, prove to her that S.H.I.E.L.D. were the good guys. Now, the anger burns through him. He's been lied to, spied on, experimented on, ripped from death, and tortured. All by the very people that claim to be his family.

Phil checks his gun, watches Skye do the same before they head out.

Skye might have faith in Phil Coulson, but Phil Coulson no longer does. Heaven help them all if Skye can't keep him in check.

If the guest house gave Phil flashbacks, then Fury's bunker can only be deemed a nightmare; its halls twisted, doorways on the wrong side, whole floors shifted from where Phil knows they should be. An unease settles in Phil's gut, his instincts telling him that he's never walked these corridors, but his mind _knows_ he has. For fuck's sake, he helped Nick design the damn thing!

After another wrong turn, his frustration boils over and he slams his fist into the wall, growling, even as the pain of his split knuckles surges up his arm.

Skye hisses at him to be quiet and drags them into a darkened room. He shakes his head. "No. We haven't seen a living soul. Where the fuck is everyone?" he huffs. "Something's wrong, Skye. This… this isn't the right building. I know the bunker like the back of my hand. There's no way I'd lead us wrong."

She looks at him, head cocked, brown eyes wide, full of sympathy. "Maybe you only think you've been here before?"

"What?"

"Tahiti wasn't real, boss. What else isn't?"

"Are you suggesting--"

She shrugs, but doesn't stop looking at him. "Things haven't added up in a long time. And now you can't remember somewhere you helped design?" She waves a hand toward the empty hallway. "Where's security? We've been wandering down here for half an hour, gone for days. You believe they'd just allow that? Wake up. They had May spying on you!"

Skye's shout startles Phil and he jerks back, stung. Because that had hurt. The only thing that could have possibly hurt worse was if Fury had ordered Barton and Romanoff to betray him. He sags against the wall. "I need answers, Skye. I need--"

"Let's try it my way then."

He honestly has no idea what she's talking about, but he trusts Skye. She's the only thing he does trust right now and the irony of that isn't lost on him.

"Go ahead."

He sags into a wheeled chair and waits as Skye takes over a terminal.

"Sir?" Skye's voice wakes him from where he must have dozed off. Lack of a decent night's sleep is making him punch drunk and frazzled.

He stands and walks to her side. "What? Did you find something?"

She's looking up at him with those wide eyes, that trust and compassion that he's come to rely on. "Tell me," he croaks, his voice tight, fear lighting his spine.

"I-I don't…" she stutters.

"Please," he begs. "I need to know."

She clicks the mouse and pulls up a video feed. In it, Phil is lying on the table, just like that damned Centipede machine had shown him: skull open, eyes wide, body immobile with that insect like machine doing something to his brain.

He swallows. "Yeah. I remembered that."

She shakes her head, presses a palm to his forearm. "It's not a recording, sir."

He stops breathing, can't form words. There's a terrible pressure in his head, his chest, he can't feel his legs. He backs away, but the video is still rolling, he can't escape from the images.

She looks at him one last time, the care he doesn't deserve shining from her face. "I don't think I'm real, AC. I don't think any of this is."

He screams.

The End

**Author's Note:**

>  **A/N:** This satisfies my trope_bingo square: _trapped in a dream_ for my Wild square. I have major pheels about Phil and Skye uniting to find answers, but they're not all happy ones. The title comes from Philip K. Dick's novel: _'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'_ It is the name of an empathy test used to distinguish human from android.
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** These are Marvel and Whedon and ABC's characters used in the spirit of creative commons. I promise to return them with smiles on.


End file.
